Michigan Tech researchers contend that tobacco farmers could increase profits by converting their land to solar farms, which in turn provides renewable energy generation.
Although tobacco use is the leading cause of avoidable death globally, farming tobacco continues to provide the primary source of income to many farmers.
As demand for solar energy grows so does the demand for land for solar farms.
Krishnan and Pearce selected North Carolina for their case study because it is a major tobacco-producing state with large swaths of land and high solar potential.
Pearce notes that tobacco continues to be farmed in the U.S. today because farmers can make money doing it.
“We were interested in what conditions were needed to enable tobacco farmers to begin installing solar energy systems on the same land,” he says.
In the long run, tobacco farmers stand to make more money farming solar rays for energy instead of growing a component of cigarettes. »
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